sys/dev/ath - stable/7 swi4: clock loadavg @ r201042

[jhell]

FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE #0 r201042: Sun Dec 27 03:54:21 EST 2009

Recently I have been noticing an increase in clock usage and have not been 
able to determine the cause. The hardware I am using is a Dell Dimension 
4500S with a Linksys WMP110/AR5416 chipset. This is a well standard 
configuration without local patches @ revision 201042.

Details follow:

At system boot and also tried with a wait period for hardware to settle.
#1 ( ifconfig ath0 up ) - swi4: clock usage load raises to 3.08% - 3.66%

#2 ( ifconfig ath0 promisc ) - swi4: clock usage raises to 8.15% - 9.47%

#3 ( ifconfig ath0 -promisc ) - swi4: clock drops back to #1

#4 ( ifconfig ath0 mediaopt monitor ) - swi4: clock usage drops to 0%

#5 ( ifconfig ath0 -mediaopt monitor ) - swi4: clock raises to #1
----

I do not recall this happening with the clock in previous runs with 
different versions of FreeBSD with this card. I have been using this card 
since 6.1 or 6.2 with ndis before the AR5416 support was added in December 
of 2008 and that never seemed to be a issue. The idle CPU time while this 
is happening is also at 100% ? ;).

Also I have noticed ( dual boot ) when I do not fully power-off this 
machine after a reboot from Win7 and I try to set the ath0 interface into 
a up state that the machine just locks up leaving no choice but to do a 
2-3 second power button destroy press. It is almost like the hardware is 
not being reset to its default state and causing some trampoline to 
happen. That does not worry me as much as the clock usage though.

If there is any more relevant information that could be relayed please 
feel free to let me know and I will get back ASAP as I would like to 
resolve this if there is unneeded hardware usage going on.

-- 

  Sun Dec 27 20:48:09 2009 -0500

  jhell